Phillip guessed at least an hour had passed since he had heard anyone move through the surrounding corridors.

Thomas was getting worse. Blood had soaked through the fabric around his upper arm and shoulder, spreading in dark patches that had slowed but not stopped growing. His breathing remained shallow, and the skin around his mouth had lost much of its color. Phillip leaned closer to examine the needles embedded in the lieutenant’s arm.

They were thin, dark, and almost smooth when touched from point to tail. Against the grain, their surfaces caught like rows of microscopic hooks.

Sharkskin. The word brought an image with it. Blue water. Sunlight breaking into long, shifting columns above him. A shark passing close enough for him to run a gloved hand along its flank. A blue shark. It had approached while he was working and surprised the hell out of him.

Phillip stopped. He had worked underwater? No. Not exactly. He had been underwater while doing something else. A job, perhaps, though that word felt wrong. It had been part of an assignment. Something he had trained for but no longer did.

He had another job now. Something different. The memory slipped away before he could follow it, just as the shark had. Phillip let it go and returned his attention to Thomas.

The barbs explained why the needles had remained lodged in him. Pulling one free without knowing its shape would tear open the wound. Phillip shifted Thomas slightly to examine the angle of the projectile nearest his shoulder.

Thomas winced and opened his eyes. “How long was I out?” His voice was dry and strained.

“About an hour,” Phillip answered.

“Why did you wait?” Thomas asked as he tried to sit straighter against the wall.

“Safer to lie low. Let them stop looking so hard and get comfortable before we stirred things up again.”

Thomas nodded faintly and looked down at his arm. “I’ve never been shot before.”

“That isn’t being shot,” Phillip said. “That’s a sewing accident.”

Thomas grimaced as the pain in his arm demanded attention. “I need a medkit.”

“Are there any nearby?”

“There should be one in each escape pod.”

Phillip considered that. “And what happens if someone launched all the escape pods?”

Thomas blinked. “You launched all of them?”

“It made the bluff more convincing.”

“You launched four escape pods to fake our deaths?”

“It worked.”

Thomas shook his head, acknowledging the success while lamenting the loss of the kits. “There’s another kit in every major department,” he said. “Medical, Engineering, the bridge, security posts, the galley. We only need to find one they aren’t guarding.”

Phillip stood and offered him a hand. “Then we should get moving.”

Thomas accepted the help and struggled upright. Phillip drew Thomas’s uninjured arm across his shoulders, then guided him from the recessed equipment bay and back into the corridor.

They moved slowly. Thomas could still walk, but each step placed more of his weight against Phillip. The lieutenant’s injured arm hung close to his body, and his face tightened whenever the ship shifted beneath them.

“So,” Phillip said, “explain the sewing machines.”

“Magnetic accelerators,” Thomas answered through the pain. “They throw needles at high velocity.”

“Five hundred years, I figured you’d have ray guns.”

“They’re designed for shipboard fighting. The needles have enough velocity to penetrate a person, but not enough mass to rupture a pressure hull.” Thomas breathed through another step. “They also produce less heat, radiation, and power feedback than lasers or particle weapons. Less chance of interfering with the ship’s systems.”

“Okay. Then why couldn’t I hit those men? I fired at one from a few feet away.”

“Field generator.” Thomas paused to steady himself against the wall. “They must have something on the suit—or a belt unit—creating a magnetic distortion around them. Needles are light. Deflect the point by a fraction, and the whole projectile misses or strikes at the wrong angle.”

“I saw that.”

“The fields can still be overwhelmed. Enough needles can cause a collapse. Enough mass can push through the distortion.”

“Then why doesn’t everyone wear one?”

“Cost. Power. Weight. They interfere with other equipment and aren’t practical for routine security work.”

Thomas’s words trailed off as they turned the corner.

Bodies filled the corridor ahead. Crew members lay against the bulkheads and across the deck, some alone, others piled where they had tried to retreat through a pressure doorway. Needles protruded from uniforms, throats, faces, and hands raised too late in defense.

There were dozens.

Phillip’s eyes swept for movement. A rising chest, a twitching hand. Nothing. Thomas stared into the corridor. The little strength left in his posture seemed to leave him. Neither man spoke as they moved forward.

Phillip guided Thomas around the bodies, choosing each step carefully. He avoided blood where he could and placed his feet between the scattered needles rather than on them.

“Not much of a reason when you think about it,” Thomas said quietly.

Phillip said nothing.

Thomas had performed well under fire, but the corridor had reached him in a way the fighting had not. He had known people would die. Knowing had not prepared him to step around them. Phillip understood that without remembering how. His own lack of reaction troubled him more. He felt anger. He understood the loss. But the bodies themselves did not shock him. His eyes continued sorting them into hazards, cover, possible weapons, and places an attacker might hide. When had he learned to look at the dead that way?

“Which way?” Phillip asked.

Thomas lifted his head. “The galley is to the right. There should be a medkit near the main entrance.”

“You think they’ll be guarding it?”

“Probably not. They have more important compartments to secure.”

Phillip guided him toward the galley.

The doorway stood open. Inside, the tables were bare except for several abandoned trays. A cup had fallen onto its side near one bench, leaving a dark stain across the tabletop. Other meals sat untouched where the alert had interrupted them, but otherwise the room appeared undamaged.

That bothered Phillip. Every corridor they had crossed showed some evidence of the attack: blood, smoke, broken panels, discarded equipment. The galley looked paused more than abandoned.

“Where is the kit?” he asked.

“Red box beside the kitchen door.”

Phillip helped Thomas onto the edge of a table and looked toward the wall. A palm-sized red box rested beside the kitchen entrance. For an instant, it reminded him of a fire alarm. The half-memory irritated him. Recognition without meaning. An object from a world he had lost, close enough to touch but impossible to hold.

He started toward it, then stopped. Warm air drifted through the kitchen doorway, carrying the smell of food—something heated recently. Phillip’s attention moved across the galley again. Abandoned trays. Empty tables. The quiet kitchen beyond the open door.

Something was wrong.

He could not identify what. He moved faster toward the medkit. The moment his fingers touched the box, the kitchen door opened. A pirate stepped through carrying a plate of food, his rifle slung across his back.

For one second, neither man moved.

Phillip went first. He tore the medkit from its bracket and struck him across the face with it. The pirate’s plate fell, clattering across the deck. Phillip did not wait for a response.

He drove a kick into the man’s midsection. His foot struck something rigid beneath the suit, and the armor absorbed part of the impact. He adjusted without thinking. His next strike crossed the pirate’s jaw, followed by an elbow that drove him backward into the kitchen frame.

The pirate recovered quickly. He caught Phillip’s arm, twisted, and tried to turn him into the wall. Phillip shifted with the motion rather than fighting it. He stepped inside, trapped the man’s wrist against his chest, and drove the heel of his hand beneath the pirate’s chin. The man stumbled but remained upright.

He knew how to fight. Phillip released the wrist, struck the inside of the man’s elbow, and redirected the counterattack past his shoulder. His body moved through a sequence too practiced to be improvised.

Block. Control. Balance. Target.

He caught the pirate’s arm again and pulled him forward. Then he drove the edge of his hand into the man’s throat. Cartilage gave beneath the strike.

The pirate folded against him, choking. Phillip guided him to the deck rather than allowing the man’s weight to drag them both down. He watched the pirate claw at his throat, assessing whether he remained a threat.

The fight didn’t feel like panic or instinct. It felt like a trained, practiced response. His conscious mind was still wrestling with what his body had already finished. What it had begun preparing for next.

Behind him, Thomas pushed himself away from the table as the kitchen door opened again. A second pirate appeared with his rifle leveled at Phillip. Thomas threw himself sideways. Phillip did not move. His eyes narrowed. This was not what had disturbed him. The pirate stared at Phillip, then at the dying man on the deck. Confusion delayed him for only a fraction of a second.

It was enough.

Three long, dark fingers descended from above the doorway and closed around his head. They twisted violently. The pirate’s neck broke with a sickening, wet crack. The fingers released him, allowing the body to collapse across the threshold.

Something unfolded from the darkness above the kitchen entrance. A narrow head descended first, followed by shoulders that should not have fit within the space. Dark eyes settled on Phillip.

The Serpis lowered himself soundlessly from the ceiling duct.

His skin was deep blue beneath the emergency lighting, its surface shifting subtly between scales and something smoother. His limbs were too long by human proportions, and when he straightened, he stood more than a foot taller than Phillip.

G’Dahn did not look at the pirate he had killed; he watched Phillip.

A low hiss passed between his teeth. The sound carried neither surprise nor greeting. It felt closer to accusation.

A translator pin attached to his uniform crackled. “You knew I was there.” It was not a question.

Phillip held his gaze. He had known something was there. He had not known what.

“Commander G’Dahn,” Thomas said, relief breaking through the pain. “I’m glad you survived.”

G’Dahn turned his head toward him slowly. "And you, Lieutenant Thomas.”

The translator reproduced the words in a flat mechanical voice, but something in the Serpis’s expression suggested less enthusiasm than the translation implied.

“I have found no others alive between this compartment and Engineering,” G’Dahn continued. “Most of the crew in this section are dead.”

“We’ve seen the same,” Thomas said. “Do you know how many attackers there are?”

G’Dahn looked down at the two pirates. “Two fewer.”

A faint vibration passed through his throat. Phillip could not tell whether it was satisfaction or merely emphasis.

“They will be missed soon,” G’Dahn said. “We should not remain here.” His attention shifted to Thomas’s arm. “How severe are your injuries?”

“We came for the medkit. It should keep me moving.”

G’Dahn looked toward the red box lying beside the dying pirate. He crossed the distance with unnerving grace, bent, and retrieved it. Then he held it out to Phillip. Phillip took the kit carefully, keeping his attention on the Serpis. G’Dahn released it without looking away.

“We need to contact Fleet Command,” Thomas said. “And determine what these people want.”

G’Dahn gave no visible response. Phillip brought the kit to Thomas and examined its surface. The device opened when he pressed it against the wound near the lieutenant’s shoulder. Its casing spread across the uniform like liquid and sealed around the embedded needles.

Thomas hissed as the material tightened. A thin crystalline film formed around the blood and exposed metal. The device emitted a sharp snap, cutting away the protruding shafts and sealing the remaining fragments in place.

Thomas released a slow breath. “That should stabilize them,” he said. “It won’t remove the barbs, but it’ll stop the bleeding.”

“They must have the bridge by now,” Phillip said.

“Engineering as well,” G’Dahn replied. “The ship is moving away from the ambush site under normal propulsion. They have not attempted a transit transition.”

“You can tell that from here?” Phillip asked.

“I can feel the engines.”

Phillip could not determine whether the translator had rendered the statement accurately.

“They understand the ship’s systems,” G’Dahn continued. “Some have received naval training. Others were likely members of your navy.”

“Deserters and washouts,” Thomas said. He crouched beside the pirate Phillip had fought and pulled back the man’s sleeve. A faded barcode had been tattooed along the inside of the forearm. “Prisoner identification,” Thomas said. “Used for military criminals.”

Phillip looked at the dead man’s pressure suit. “Take their gear.”

Thomas followed his gaze. “The suits?”

“If we’re seen at a distance, they might buy us a second before someone starts shooting.” Phillip looked toward G’Dahn. “I doubt the same idea works for you.”

G’Dahn’s translator clicked once. “No.”

Phillip rolled the dead pirate onto his side. “The field generator. Where is it?”

Thomas pointed toward a fist-sized unit secured at the small of the man’s back. “That should be it. It draws power from the suit.”

Phillip examined the attachment points. “Can you use one?” he asked G’Dahn.

“It would restrict my movement.” The Serpis looked toward the ceiling duct. “I will avoid their sight instead. Their weapons are designed to kill soft bodies without damaging the ship.”

The translator’s phrasing left Phillip uncertain whether G’Dahn had included himself among the soft bodies. The Serpis reached up and hooked his fingers into the edge of the open vent.

“I will go to Engineering,” he said. “If I can prevent a transit transition, the ship may still be recovered.”

“We’ll head toward the bridge,” Thomas said. “If we can reach a communications station, we may be able to warn Fleet Command.”

G’Dahn paused with half his body raised into the duct. “If you reach the bridge, do not waste time attempting to communicate.” His head descended again. “Kill their leader.”

Thomas looked up at him.

“Without command, the others will not hold the ship for long,” G’Dahn continued. His dark eyes fixed on Phillip. “Do you understand your task, Pa’Doh?”

The translator emitted a single tone after the final word. Phillip felt something tighten at the base of his skull. Not a memory. Recognition without understanding. Before he could answer, G’Dahn drew himself into the duct and vanished. The darkness above the vent became empty again. Phillip remained beneath it for a moment.

“What was that last word?”

Thomas was already struggling with the fasteners on the dead pirate’s suit.“What word?”

“Pa’Doh.”

“Did the translator beep?”

“Yes.”

“Then it didn’t have a translation.” Thomas pulled at one of the suit seals. “That happens occasionally. The Serpis are still relatively new to us.”

Phillip looked at the vent through which G’Dahn had disappeared. The Serpis had not used the word as a description. He had used it like a name. Phillip bent to help Thomas remove the second suit.

He wondered how new humans truly were to the Serpis.

Next Chapter: VIII